"The problem for the population is not not enough medical information, but too much"

 

PCNet21, a workshop organized by the IN3's CNSC - Technopolitics research group, was recently held online by the UOC and the subject chosen by keynote speaker David García could not have been more relevant to current events: the politicization of medical topics on social media. He based his talk on two of his own research papers. The first, published in The Lancet, analysed the backlash on Twitter in response to a campaign launched by the same journal against the consumption of meat and how it ended up triggering a hashtag war. The second is a study on how, in the early stages of the pandemic, the publication of medical preprints was politicized on Twitter. 

 

PCNet21, a workshop organized by the IN3's CNSC - Technopolitics research group, was recently held online by the UOC and the subject chosen by keynote speaker David García could not have been more relevant to current events: the politicization of medical topics on social media. He based his talk on two of his own research papers. The first, published in The Lancet, analysed the backlash on Twitter in response to a campaign launched by the same journal against the consumption of meat and how it ended up triggering a hashtag war. The second is a study on how, in the early stages of the pandemic, the publication of medical preprints was politicized on Twitter. 

I liked the combination of perspectives and, above all, the heterogeneity of the audience. The questions were very good and the discussion, following the talks, was extremely interesting. And I left with a couple of new ideas about my own research. Interdisciplinary workshops are always difficult and I am glad that PCNet has taken up this challenge because it makes it possible to reach new audiences.

The advantage is the ability to reach a large audience with very little outlay, especially when compared to traditional media. Social media are useful when the message is aimed at a very small, specific audience, who otherwise would be very difficult to target, such as people with rare diseases.

The greatest risk is that the content of medical articles may be easy for certain parties to manipulate and use to their own advantage. Dissemination is necessary to avoid these two dangers and to ensure that these articles are not too difficult for the general public to understand.

In recent years a lot of importance has been placed on the role of social media in polarization, but empirical studies show that the matter is not as simple as that. There are other factors that have as much, if not more, effect on dividing society, such as traditional media and certain cable TV channels. In the case of medical topics, the pandemic has shown us very clear examples of polarization, such as the use of masks in the United States, although there had already been cases in the past, such as the confrontation between those in favour of meat-based diets and vegans.

There is no evidence of a pressure group or organization behind the #yes2meat hashtag. On the contrary, we found that the hashtag came from an ordinary user who defended meat-based diets and then it took off from there. We studied other signs of manipulation, such as account automation rates. That is, bots had intervened, but the rates were the same for both hashtags, indicating that this was clearly a spontaneous case.

It is difficult to see individual changes in opinion on such a short timescale, but we did find that one of the communities that initially did not have a very clear position with respect to either hashtag did opt for one side and started to retweet more messages in favour of eating meat.

We do not have data on the behaviour of these specific individuals beyond Twitter, but what have we seen in surveys in the United States since late 2016 is constant growth in the correlation between ideology and eating meat or not.

We found that medical preprints were being shared on Twitter with a clear political interest and with language that blurred whether the results were definitive or not. It is difficult to generalize based on just this case, but I would expect something similar to occur in the event of another health emergency.

I think that after the pandemic we will have a more polarized world, but I don't think that the pandemic is solely responsible for it. We have been on that path for some time now. What we can say is that COVID-19 and its effects have not contributed to curbing this phenomenon

It is difficult to compare a situation of great uncertainty, like the pandemic, with other cases in which there is much more scientific evidence, such as vaccines for other diseases.  In this second case, and although there is a lot of misinformation on social media, doctors and health authorities are still providing reliable sources of information. The problem for the population is not not enough medical information, but too much.

 

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